 Hello, good morning, and good afternoon wherever we are in the world today. My name is Rocha Maria Costips-Cisneros and I am working with the Independent Theatre Hungary on this incredible project where we're sitting down with various artists and theatre practitioners from all walks of life. And they're telling us a bit about who they are, how the work that they're involved in and they're framing different parts of the work. And I'm very lucky today to sit down with Sebastiano Spinella, who's a circus and performing artist who is one of the main protagonists of the play Children of the Wind. Hello, Sebastiano, how are you today? Hello, Rosa. Hello, hello. Thank you. I'm fine. It's nice weather. Finally, it's not so hot anymore. Yes, yes. I'm sitting in my yard. And are you right now in Italy? I am in Italy. I am 70 kilometers north of Rome, capital. Okay. I used to live in Rome, but two years ago we decided to move to the countryside. And that was a good choice, seeing what happened in the last few years. Yes, yes. We are lucky being in the countryside. We can be outside. Though I go to Rome often to meet my Roma fellows and collaborators. Yes, yes. So it's nice that you can be near the city, but also a bit further. So can you tell me a little bit and introduce yourself for those of people watching and listening that might not know who you are? I said you're a circus and performing artist, but can you tell me a little bit more? Well, I have been a circus and performing artist for many years. I started as a street performer. I did clown school and circus school. So my first, the first 10 years of my career has been especially working with street performance and small street companies, street theater companies. And also this is actually what have made the meeting with the Roma culture. And I've been working with several companies, theater companies, that travels by horse wagons. Okay. Wow. You know, in England, there is a whole movement of people in France too, of people that have gone back to a way of life with horse wagons and traveling. So they do traveling, they take over the old traveling artisanery and things like that. This is how I slowly got to know the Roma culture. Because you see, I'm not born in a Roma collective or in a Roma community. I'm a born in Sicily from an average Sicilian family. But my grandmother, she used to dress like a gypsy, act like a gypsy, talk like a gypsy. And when I was very little, she secretly told me that we are of Roma roots, ancient Roma roots. Yeah. So you see, as you told, I am Sebastiano Spinella, but I found all the documents of my family that says Spinelli, not Spinella. And in my search for my roots, I understood that Spinelli is a large community of Italian Roma and Sinti of a region here in the central Italy. So without having a real proof, I understood out of my experience of my life with traveling and traveling horse wagons and getting in touch and loving old tradition, Roma tradition. And this story of the family name, I decided at a certain point that this was what I wanted to be. I wanted to be, I like to call myself a camminante, the walker. It's a community in Sicily of probably Roma or mixed Roma roots that call themselves camminanti, the walkers. I like to walk a lot and I have been walking a lot. So beside the horses, with the horse wagons. So today I like to consider myself not as an artist, as I think that a human being, we are all artists. I like to say I'm an artisan because I made a profession out of my art. I worked with a lot with theater, from street theater to like let's say institutional theater and also experimental theater with companies, different kind of theaters. And theater made me develop my talent for music. And so I work a lot with music, I study, I'm self-taught in theater and in music. But I also have developed the profession of musical instrument reparation, restoring and tuning. And I have specialized myself on the instrument of the accordion because accordion is the queen, the king instrument of the Roma culture. And so I, today I teach theater and music and this artisanery of tuning and restore instruments to young Roma peers and children. That's beautiful, that's beautiful. And I love this, I mean it's also sad that you use the word your grandmother had to tell you in secrets and kind of self-identify in secret and there are many reasons why I'm assuming she might have had to have done that because anti-Egyptianism is quite alive and serious and that's a term that's very modern now but there's a whole legacy and historical reality that is not often taught and not really known. So you know it's sad that that, but it's also a very normalized way that people had to hide or change their names in order to survive, in order to flee persecution. So you know it's, and I didn't know that Spinelli was a family name from the Roma Sinti community in Italy. So I thank you for teaching me that because I, you know I feel there's so much to learn and also we're a community of oral history. You know it's only now that we're in this digital age that we can, you know, dig and finding out. Exactly. And so you know and you've also said that you're a caminante, so this walker. So it's a lovely way to frame the work that we're going to talk about, children of the wind. So can you tell me a little bit about this piece of theatre work and your role in the theatre work, in the work please? Yeah. The script is autobiographic. It's actually, I choose to tell about my life to give, it was a kind of also own self-therapy for defining myself. Because I had all this confusion about being or not being a Roma and being so much involved into the Roma community struggles of today and how I came to this, how my life kind of directed me to this point where I choose to be part of the Roma community in Europe. And this project has helped me a lot to define myself. So it's mainly autobiographic and that's why I tell about my grandmother. The whole thing begins with the story of my grandmother. Of course I have used a lot of poetic because I sing songs to her and I tell how she kind of passed the message to me and out of a big family I was the only one receiving it and I feel a duty also to bring it forward. Still today a good part of this family doesn't accept this reality and I am the black sheep. I have decided to work with the gypsies. I'm probably drug addict and I am, you know, living a strange life. No, I have recognized the troubles of the gypsy community. I find in myself the talent of a good life teacher and I have decided to help the young people to define themselves, to find out what it is to be Roma and to find out why in the world they live in this situation, how comes they are born there and they have to deal with being that personalities and that realities with all the struggle they have. So I kind of in the beginning I honor the figure of my grandmother as a beginner of my story. And in the middle part of the play I tell about my experience as a traveling artist. With the street theater I travel all over Europe. I do camps with other artists. We live as the gypsies they used to live in the 1800s. We make camps with our bands. We make a fire in the middle. We cook food together and this and also later when I met the horse wagon community, I did a long travels with them, left my van somewhere parked and walked taking care of the horses. And there I kind of lived a kind of déjà vu, you know, a kind of life. I know this life. I've been living this before. It must be part of my of my genetic, you know, I really felt home. And even today that I am settled down. I decide to live in the countryside because it gives me a better possibility to live in a more natural way because that is what I observe even today, even in the big cities in the Roma community, there is an unbreakable bond to nature. Even if it's not, it's not conscious, it's not green. There is a lot of confusion, especially in the camps here in Italy. There is not an ecological mind, but there is a strong, strong bond toward it that only needs to be informed, to be sustained, to be grown. And can you describe a moment, is there memorable moments in the play for you? Because you know, it's all quite personal. And you said at the beginning that it was in a way a bit of a therapy, so a bit cathartic in some sense. Yes. So is there something that really stands out for you from either working on it, performing it that you might want to share with us? Yes. The third part of the play, I tell about the experience I had, now it's 15, nearly 20 years long experience I have with this little community in the city of Rome, this little Roma community of the Serbian origin. Actually they come from the frontier between Serbia and Romania. So they speak both languages and they speak Romanese. And I have seen the development of the community and of the settlement between the last 20 years, considering the intervention of the institutions the last 10 years. 10 years ago or 15 years ago, there was a huge shift in the politics in Italy and in Rome, especially, and the big cities like Milano and Torino, the main big cities of Italy. All the Roma communities were evicted from the settlements, self-builded settlements in the cities and big institutional settlements has been built up made of metal containers in an area far away from the center of the city and from many facilities and fenced with the armoured guardians at the entrance. You have to show your ID card to come in and in a kind of segregational camp. And I have seen, I have testified the change from the self-builded settlement to the new institutional settlement, which was done in a very hurry and with a lot of, with no attention to the real needs of the community. And these have put the whole community into a very severe situation as a scapegoat. For any problem, big problem that happens in Italy, often the Roma culture is seen as the scapegoat. So I tell in the last part of the play, I tell about this community and what I have seen. So the most, coming back to your question, the most emotional, I say, moments for me of the plays are three. One is when I sing a song to my grandmother because I knowledge and thank her. One is when I tell about my horse wagon experience. And the third sad one is when I play, I play the trumpet in a moment of the play. And behind there is the screening of the camp and the young people that died in the camp because of fire and big fire that happened in the settlement because no fire extinguisher were put by the institutions, which was meant to be there. But nobody, I mean, the people or the workers that had to build, they never put the fire extinguish on their place. And so we have this big fire and two young people, they die. And one of these two were a part of my musical project. He was playing drum on my musical project. And that was a turning point for me because the institution said, ah, but we had put the fire extinguish. The Roma community says, no, you never did. I know that they never did because I was there and I saw it. And I even helped many women in the settlement putting a tube on their system so that they can easier wash and give water to the flowers. So I know exactly all the water pipes connection that was there. And I am waiting still to go to a process and testify that this was not well done. Probably the money disappeared or they said they had put in it, but they didn't. And so in this moment, I realized that the institutions and politics, they don't want to solve the situation, to include the Roma community as the European community asked to in a good way so that they can keep their traditions, but have a better life and better education and better housing and better condition. They don't want to do that, especially in Italy today. Even the pandemic have done it worse, but already much before this, you to speak about Roma is to put yourself in troubles in a public contest. I mean, I've been accused to be defending the bandits and the illegals and the drug dealers and car stealers and all this. When I say no, I work with the children. I work with the young generation. It's very difficult to help the grown-ups because you institution are not intended to help them. So I, little man with a little organization, I cannot help them, but I can help the children because they can still build up a positive mind. They can still get to learn about prejudice and to be able to build own character and own meaning about things. Absolutely. And I think there's something quite powerful in the work you're doing in bringing attention to this reality, using your arts, your own story and reflecting on what's around you to share and to educate Roma and non-Roma. And I think we're both in the arts world. So clearly, we believe that there's power and transformation that could come from arts. But it also is reflecting something quite powerful and very sad as well. And so it brings me to my last question, which is around the title of the piece, Children of the Wind. Can you share a little bit of insight into what that means and where that came from? Because it's a beautiful, very poetic title. But also it brings up a little bit of, yeah, I don't know if sadness, but something melancholic in me when I saw the name. And when I saw the play, then it made sense. But I'd love to hear from your perspective where the title came from. Okay. Well, the title itself comes from my grandmother. That's what she used as words to say, we are children of the wind. By that time, I didn't really understand it. But then this word, I mean, I also read, then later I read that in the history of the Roma people, they've been called the people of the wind because they never settled down. But I decided to use it as a title because when I started working with the community, with the Roma community in Rome, there was an area in the camp that had just been built, the institutional camp, they had left an area open and free where in the plan, in the institutional plan, there should be the playground. And three years after, there was no playground yet. I went to the institution, asked when they're going to do it. And in the end, they said they will not build this playground. So one day I went into the camp and I called all the children together and I said to them, listen children, they're never going to make a playground here. So let's build it ourselves. And the children went crazy. They started helping me, carrying rubbish and cleaning with all the grown-ups staring at us and calling us crazy, you know, looking what are you doing? But the children, they were so enthusiastic that in one hour, the whole area was totally clean from everything. And there I realized the power of the children. The children, they have power. The children and the young people to a certain age, they have a special power that we have to learn to listen to. I say today, they are my teachers as much as I am their teacher, you see. As a young artist, I refuse to teach because I thought either you are an artist or you are a teacher. Also because I was, unfortunately, I met several teachers that you could feel they were frustrated because they wanted to do other kind of work. But the only way they could make a living was by teaching. And so they could, you could feel a little bit this frustration in their teaching. But when I started to teach, which was by accident, somebody asked me, I have a concert to do somewhere else for a week. Could you please cover me teaching, making a accordion lesson to the children this week? And this meeting was great. I, it's there, I found out that I became friend with them straight away. And you know why? Because they had seen these children. They used to sell roses in the very same square where I used to go and make a street theater. So they had seen my show. And when they saw me arriving, they said, oh, you are one of us. You are, you are part of us. They didn't see me as an educator or operator or social operator. They said, oh, you are a colleague. You also live from the hat. You also collect coins. And you are good fun. I remember them every time I would start the show because the street performing life is you choose a square and you stay there half a day. And every, every half an hour, every hour you make a show. And I saw them every time I would start the show when they saw that the circle of public was surrounding me. They would stop selling roses and come and sit front row to watch my show. And they had seen it many times. So when they saw, they realized that I would, would be the accordion teacher. They were very happy. And the guy that I was supposed to cover, he later asked me to join the project and left it to me actually. In the end, I was alone taking care of this project. Okay. So that's, you know, it feels full circle to, to hear about, to have seen the work, to speak with you about your own personal story and reality and also how this links back to the next generation and, you know, all of your work and love and passion for children. So thank you so much. It's, it's really, I've learned so much and also felt really inspired by, by what you've, you've said your, your vulnerability as well and sharing, not only with the work, but also in the interview. So thank you so much. Thank you. Is there anything else, any final words for our viewers or listeners that you want to share? Yes. I, I would drop a word about the independent theater because it's thanks to them that we are here having this conversation. And now it's the fourth year I know them. It all started with children of the wind. And I'm very grateful to them for giving me this opportunity. And I feel for every year that passes, I feel more and more important what they are doing because the team is growing internationally. Yes. You see, we, you are in England, there is people in Scotland, there are people in Ireland, in Spain, but also from the Eastern Bloc. They are working with Ukraine, with Czechoslovakia and other, other, other countries, Romania. Yeah. And this, I think in the future will bring, will bring results because this is, it's a no frontiers, no borders movement. And this is very important for the future of humankind. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that out of the last, the last level on which the, the, the Roma community has been pushed down to the lowest level of the society, I think we have a message that will form the future of the humankind. This is my deep belief. It's very beautiful. And, and you know, despite a lot of the heaviness and reality that you've seen and felt, you know, there's still so much love and hope, you know, and that's really powerful. And I, I stand right beside you or I dance right beside you. So, yeah. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rosa. Thank you.